The war on terror keeps being declared over –Â hereÂ is an example from August 2009. How many times will it have to be declared over before the jihadis stop plotting mayhem against the West? Even more importantly, how many times will it be declared over before Islamic supremacists stop trying to impose Sharia in the West by nonviolent means?

They will never stop, of course. And official Washington, with more of its signature wishful thinking and myopia, is legitimizing those who want to impose Sharia by peaceful means, while stigmatizing only those who are less patient and resort to violence. “Can Obama Safely Embrace Islamists?,” by Michael Hirsh in theÂ National Journal, April 23

In an article in the current National Journal called “The Post Al Qaida Era,” I write that the Obama administration is taking a new view of Islamist radicalism. The president realizes he has no choice but to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood and other relatively “moderate” Islamist groups emerging as lead political players out of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. (The Muslim Brotherhood officially renounced violence decades ago, leading then-dissident radicals such as Ayman al-Zawahiri to join al Qaida.)

It is no longer the case, in other words, that every Islamist is seen as a potential accessory to terrorists. “The war on terror is over,” one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.” (In a Tuesday night update to this post, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor clarified that while the “war on terror” concept has been dropped, “we absolutely have never said our war against al Qaida is over. We are prosecuting that war at an unprecedented pace.”…